Input/output (I/O) circuits are generally used for transferring data to and from an integrated circuit or other type of electronic device. I/O circuits (also referred to as input/output buffers, receiver/transmitter circuits, or receiver/driver circuits) are often designed to support one or more types of I/O interface standards (e.g., low voltage differential signaling (LVDS) or high-speed transceiver logic (HSTL)), which may include one or more signal level requirement types within an I/O interface standard (e.g., a specific type of LVDS). These I/O interface standards generally address chip-to-chip interfaces, board-to-board interfaces, and box-to-box interfaces for a wide range of existing and emerging applications, such as data packet processing, data bus bridges, and high-speed memory interfacing.
The I/O circuits typically are designed to support the desired I/O standard, while minimizing noise and other known performance degradations. As a specific example, an LVDS differential output driver may be used to transmit information from one integrated circuit to another. The LVDS differential output driver typically employs switches to direct current in one direction or another to a receiver to transmit the desired information. However, a drawback of a conventional LVDS differential output driver is that the switches may not operate in an identical fashion and may not open and close at precisely the desired time. Consequently, this may result in performance degradation and may also result in noise being introduced at the LVDS differential output driver's output. As a result, there is a need for improved I/O circuit techniques, such as switching techniques for LVDS differential output driver applications.